The history of the world is writ large in the story of the
movements of people from land to land, from the pre-historic to the
historic days. Thus evolved the variegated social landscape
differing in structure and composition.

The commanding position of Ceylon at the Southernmost point of
the mainland of Asia, on the world's highways between the East and
the West, has drawn to its shores divergent peoples, from early
ages. Lured by the pearls, gems and spices, came foreign merchants —
the Greeks, the Romans and the Arabs. Besides trade, the footprint
on Adam's Peak (Sri Pada) regarded by the Muslims as the sacred
footprint of Adam, was an additional impetus to the Muslim world.
Prompted by interests other than trade, came the Malays from the
Island of Java in the 18th century and in time spread over to
different parts of Ceylon, mainly the Northern, Western and Southern
Provinces.

While these in brief outline the main streams of relations of
Ceylon with lands overseas, nearer home, the environmental geography
of Ceylon in relation to South India, its next door neighbour,
steadily exerted profound and enduring influences on Ceylon,
historically, socially and culturally.

Tracing back the original homes of the Tamils, recent researches
have in the main strengthened the hypothesis of the origin of the
Dravidians from lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea, and the
islands of the Aegean archipelago. Dominant racial strains and
cultural traits of the Tamils found prevailing in varying
proportions over North India and adjacent lands, lend substantial
weight to this wider outlook of the original .home of the Tamils,
leading us to the proposition that however much the Tamils are
concentrated in South India, where their language and culture are
best preserved, they nevertheless were not indigenous to South
India. As the Dravidian problem is
separately considered in the sequel, in some considerable
detail, more need not be said of it here.

International Outlook of the Tamil

The dispersal of the Tamils over the ages from their homelands to
the mainland of Asia, spreading over in strength to lands of South
East Asia and beyond, and to the islands of the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans, bear testimony to the international outlook of the Tamils
from very early, days--a universality of outlook, an outlook which
found ample expression at the
Second International
Conference - Seminar of. Tamil Studies held in Madras in
January, 1968, attended by delegates and observers from forty-two
countries. Ceylon sent a strong representation of delegates and
observers.

Tamilnadu and Ceylon

The intimate cultural integration of Ceylon with the Tamilnadu of
South India is well sustained by several sources. Of literary
evidence we have the epic poem
Manimekalai among "the
greatest of the classical epic poems of Theravada Buddhism," and the
Cilappadikaram, the
Epic of the Anklet, singing the chronicle of Kannaki. The cult of
goddess Kannaki is a "vital link between South India and Ceylon.
Following the inauguration by. Cheran Sengottuvan, of the temple to
Goddess Kannaki, an inauguration at which Ceylon was represented by
King Gajabahu (171 - 193 A.D.),1 as Cilappadikaram
tells us, the cult of the Goddess spread all over Ceylon, the
Kannaki Amman of the Tamils, Goddess Pattini of the Sinhalese, the
most vigorous perhaps of the folk cults of the Sinhalese.

In the category of archaeological data, we have the observations
of Paul Pieris, the eminent Sinhalese civilian and historian,
following his excavation of part of the site of Kantharodai, the
earliest capital of the kings of Jaffna.2 "It will
be seen that the village of Kantharodai has no reason to be ashamed
of its contribution to our knowledge regarding the ancient history
of our island. It stands to reason that a country which is only 80
miles from India and which would have been seen by Indian fishermen
every morning as they sailed out to catch their fish, would have
been occupied as soon as the continent was peopled by men who
understood how to sail. I suggest that the North of Ceylon was a
flourishing settlement before Vijaya was born. I consider it as
proved that at any rate such was its condition before the
commencement of the Christian Era." Memories of the past flash
across one's mind, as I felt, when I first visited the site a few
years ago.

In a similar vein, are his remarks3 on the
ancestral Hindu Temples of Ceylon

"Long before the arrival of Vijaya, there were in Lanka five
recognised isvarams of Siva which claimed and received adoration
of all India. These were Tiruketeeswaram near Mahatittha ;
Munneswaram dominating Salawatta and the Pearl fishery ;
Tondeswaram near Mantota ; Tirukoneswaram near the great bay of
Kottiyar and Nakuleswaram near Kankesanturai. Their situation
close to these ports cannot be the result of accident or caprice
and was probably determined by the concourse of a wealthy
mercantile population whose religious wants called for
attention."

The situation of these large and ancestral shrines in widely
separated parts of Ceylon, is an obvious index to the range of
distribution of the Tamils over Ceylon from very early ages,
testifying to a strong Tamil population at the cardinal points and
sea port towns of Ceylon. This would also indicate that the Tamils
entered Ceylon at whatever port was most convenient of access, not
necessarily from the major sea ports of the Jaffna. Peninsula.

The Veddas, the Sinhalese and the Tamils are the three " Primary
Races " of Ceylon. The Veddas are the aboriginals of the Island. As
already stated, practically all authorities are agreed that the
Tamils have been in occupation of the Island " for over 2,000
years." 4

Says Tennent,

" Jaffna has been peopled by Tamils for at least
2,000 years, the original settlement being of a date coeval with the
earliest Malabar5 invasion of the Island, and
their chiefs continued to assume the rank and title of independent
princes down to the seventeenth century. The Rajavaliya recounts the
occasions on which they carried on wars with the Sinhalese kings of
the Island ; and their authority and influence in the fourteenth
century are attested by the protection which the Raja whose
dominions extended as far as Chilaw, afforded to Ibn Batuta, when
with his companions, he was permitted to visit the sacred foot-print
on the summit of Adam's Peak."

The more significant role that Jaffna filled in the annals of the
Tamils in Ceylon, is to be sought in the fact that as the nearest to
the Tamilnadu of South India, Jaffna was the earliest to come under
strong social, cultural and political influences from South India,
and was occupied by the Tamils earlier than the rest of Ceylon,
going back to the legendary days. (Manimekalai ; the Cilappadikaram).

Under a variety of forces, Jaffna developed as an independent
sovereign power from early ages with its own line of kings. Jaffna
grew from strength to strength and in later ages, became a strong
political factor in the history of Ceylon, to middle seventeenth
century when Jaffna passed into the hands of the Portuguese. The
Tamil kingdom of Jaffna indeed witnessed its growth and development
side by side with the Sinhalese Kingdom at Anuradhapura. Politically
and culturally, the Vijayan era set the stamp to the progressive
growth of the Ceylon Tamil, the main lines of which are narrated in
the next chapter.

The Ceylon Tamils are intensely concentrated in the Northern and
Eastern Provinces, regions which have come to be known as the
homelands of Ceylon Tamil, and they are a strong minority in the
rest of the provinces of Ceylon — a major element in the population
of the Western, Central and North-Western Provinces, particularly in
the region between Puttalam and Kalpitiya.

In the reconstruction of the history of the
Ceylon Tamil the early stages pose a problem of their own. This
largely follows on the scarcity of absolute historical data, either
of chronicles or of evidence from archaeology on a scale
commensurate to the magnitude of the problem.

There is some comfort in the thought that we have more or less
specific knowledge of the centres vital to the early history of the
Tamils. Sporadic explorations such as we have had over the past few
decades at a few of the sites in the Northern Province hold out
promise of a harvest of valuable materials on well planned
systematic excavations of archaeological sites.

Within the limitations imposed by the lack of historical
chronicles and the inadequacy of archaeological investigations,
students of history are left to assess historical data from Tamil
literary sources and from traditions and legends in an endeavour to
bridge gaps in knowledge of the chronicle of the Ceylon Tamil. In
this respect Sinhalese history strikes a parallel to early Tamil,
much of the Vijayan epoch being built up from a complex of legends ;
so much so historians are disposed to begin the authentic history of
Ceylon from the reign of Devanampiya Tissa, (247 - 207 B.C.), the
contemporary of Asoka, on the ground that it is only after the
spread of Buddhism that an authentic account of the history of
Ceylon emerges.

Notices and accounts by foreign travellers and mariners have made
their own contribution to our knowledge of early Tamils. Not all
these accounts have been fully investigated yet. Among literary
sources, the more significant is the Tamil poetical literature of
the Sangam age.

A definite stage in the pursuit of traditional lore of the Jaffna
Peninsula is the publication in 1736 of " Yalpana Vaipava Mani " by
Mylvagana Pulavar, which embodies earlier collections, the " Kailaya
Malai", " Vaiya Padal", " Pararajasekharan Ula" and " Raja Murai."
The recent edition of " Yalpana Vaipava Malai" by Mudaliyar Kula
Sabanathan has made a notable contribution to the regeneration of
this work.

Leaving aside for the moment these sources, legends and
traditions, literature and travellers' accounts, let us turn to
facts of history ; of relations which inevitably followed on the
close proximity of North Ceylon to the populous Tamilnadu of South
India, leading in their wake to a variety of forces, social and
political, which contributed to the growth of an independent Tamil
sovereignty of Jaffna.

Of prime importance to the destinies of Jaffna have been her
seaports the only gateway for ages between Ceylon and lands
overseas, an index to which are the antiquities revealed by the
sporadic excavations so far carried out at Kantharodai and Mantai,
Indian Punch-marked coins, Roman coins, objects of indigenous art
and industry and Hindu and Buddhist sculptures. These and other
objects of material culture disclosed in the small scale
explorations elsewhere too, bear out the inter-related life, the
people lived.

Here I may draw attention to the cosmopolitanism in social
relations, not only in Jaffna but also in other commercial centres
on the mainland, such as Puhar, the Chola capital. What is found in
the Jaffna peninsula, in the ancient capital cities and the maritime
port of Mantai, is this cosmopolitan life of early Tamil commercial
centres in India as in Ceylon.

So far as South Indian influences on Jaffna are concerned, the
fact is too obvious to stress that Jaffna with its close proximity
to the thickly populated Tamil districts of South India would have
been occupied by the maritime Tamils earlier than by other racial
elements. Illustrative of these relations, is the ancient site of
Kantharodai, already referred to, first explored by Paul Pieris.6

In place-names, Sinhalese place-names in Tamil areas and Tamil
place-names in Sinhalese areas, we may rightly see a reflection of
the inter-related social life the people lived, rather than any
priority of occupation by either.

We may now briefly outline the more significant of the historical
relations between South India and the North Ceylon in the early
ages. In the chronicle of the relations, the eponymous Vijaya set
the pace with his matrimonial mission to the Pandyan king at Madura,
to find a mate befitting his royal rank, in place of the Yakka
princess, Kuveni. The mission to the Pandyan king and the king's
response are mentioned in the "Mahavamsa" (VII, 48-58) :—

" The ministers, whose minds were eagerly bent upon the
consecrating of their lord and who, although the means were
difficult, had overcome all anxious fears about the matter, sent
people entrusted with many precious gifts, jewels, pearls and so
forth, to the city of Madura in South India to woo the daughter of
the Pandu king for their lord, devoted as they were to their ruler,
and they also sent to woo the daughters of others for the ministers
and retainers. When the messengers were quickly come by ship to the
city of Madura, they laid the gifts and letters before the king. The
king took counsel with his ministers, and since he was minded to
send his daughter to Lanka, he having first received also daughters
of others for the ministers of Vijaya, nigh upon a hundred maidens,
proclaimed with beat of drums : ' Those men here who are willing to
let a daughter depart for Lanka shall provide their daughters with a
double store of clothing and place them at the doors of their homes.
By this sign shall we know that we may take them to ourselves.'

" When he had thus obtained many maidens and had given
compensation to their families, he sent his daughter, bedecked with
all her ornaments, and all that was needful for the journey, and all
the maidens whom he had fitted out, according to their rank,
elephants withal and horses and wagons worthy of a king and
craftsmen and a thousand families of the eighteen guilds, entrusted
with a letter to the conqueror Vijaya. All this multitude of men
disembarked at Mahatittha, for that very reason is that landing
place known as Mahatittha."

Assembling the data from these and other sources, Fr.
Gnanaprakasar, in " The Beginnings of Tamil Rule in Ceylon," 7 sums up the social impact :

" The Pandyan sent out
his own maiden daughter with 699 maidens chosen from among his
nobility. These 700 ladies landed with their retinue safely at Cottiar. The princess was attended by a personal staff of 18
officers of state, 75 menial servants (being horsekeepers, elephant
keepers and charioteers) besides numerous slaves. It may reasonably
be assumed that each of these 18 officers was accompanied by his
wife and children, his men-servants and maidservants, male slaves
and female slaves. In like manner each of the 699 noble maidens was
accompanied by attendants, servants and slaves. And there were also
numbers of families of each of the five sorts of tradesmen who came
to Ceylon on this occasion."

The Vijayan era was one of cordiality between South India and
Ceylon. All through his long reign of 88 years, Vijaya sent to the
Pandyan king an annual present of " a shell peal worth twice a
hundred thousand " (" pieces of money "). (Maha. VII : 72 - 74).

Trade as a fundamental
factor in the early relations of South India and Ceylon finds
frequent mention in the Mahavamsa. The retinue that accompanied the
sacred Bo-sapling from India included " families of traders." The
ruins of Vessagiri in Anuradhapura testifies to the time when
merchants entered the Sangha. Here dwelt five hundred Vessas (Vaisyas)
" when they received the Pabbaja from the Great Thera " (Maha. XX:
15 - 16 ).

The name occurs of the Brahmin Kundali, " in whose possession was
merchandise from overseas " (Maha. XXIII: 23-41). The exports
included horses. The Governor of Giri in the Village of
Kudumbiyagana, had " a Sindhu horse that would let no man mount him
" (Maha. XXIII, 71). That trade spearheaded political adventurism,
is evident from the career of Sena and Guttika, sons of a freighter
who brought horses and changed over from trade to political
conquest. Coming at the head of an army, they overpowered King
Suratissa (187 - 177 B.C.) and ruled at Anuradhapura (177 - 155
B.C.). This seems to have been the first of the Tamils to assert
themselves over their neighbour Ceylon, at a time when the Sinhalese
monarchy felt itself secure following the righteous rule of
Devanampiya Tissa (247 - 207 B.C.).

" Love thy neighbour as thyself," as a code of political ethics,
has seldom found much of an application in the story of nations,
however much it may be cherished as an ideal.

The trail of political conquest, set by Sena and Guttika, was
pursued by Elara " from the Chola country, a Damila of noble
descent," who seized the kingdom from Asela (155 - 145 B.C.) and
ruled for forty-four years (145 - 101 B.C.) " with even justice
toward friend and foe on occasions of disputes at law." (Maha. XXI:
13 - 15).

Elara was ultimately vanquished in open encounter by Prince
Duttagamini. In the Mahavamsa statement (Ch. XXV: 115), that " when
he had thus overpowered thirty. two Damila kings, Duttagamini ruled
over Lanka in single sovereignty," we visualise both the strength of
the Tamil resistance, and the heroic achievements of Prince
Duttagamini.

Trade and politics continued to interact sporadically. " Tissa, a
Brahmin, led a rebellion in the reign of Valagamba " and " his
following waxed great." This is supposed to have given a handle to
the Pandyan to enter the stage of Ceylon. The Mahavamsa narrates
that five members of the Pandyan dynasty — Pulahatta, Bahiya,
Panayamara, Piliyamaraka and Dhatika, ruled in political partnership
for a total period of fifteen years from 44 to 29 B.C.

The history of Ceylon from the reign of Devanampiya Tissa (247 -
207 B.C.) to Mahasena (325 - 352 A.D.) is spoken of as the Asokan
period of Ceylon history, a term based on the circumstance that
Devanampiya Tissa and Emperor Asoka were contemporaries and the
reign of Tissa inaugurated a spiritual and cultural renaissance, of
the greatest consequence to Ceylon with the Asokan influences
predominating, and the spread of Buddhism in Ceylon.

In the years intervening, before the era began of the Pallavas,
appeared a Sinhalese Sovereign whose reputation has dhone ever
since, in the person of King Gajabahu (171 - 193 A.D.).

Remarkable alike for his military deeds, as for his spirituality,
he will ever be remembered for his inaugurating in Ceylon the cult
of Goddess Pattini, on his return from South India. Of his presence
at the consecration of the first Pattini shrine in South India by
King Cheran Sengottuvan, we have evidence in the Tamil epic of the
age, the Cilappadikaram of the 2nd century A.D . The Sinhalese poem
Gajabakathava (the Chronicle of Gajabahu) sings these incidents in
flowery language. Pattini cult is today among the most widely
prevailing of the folk cults of the Sinhalese.

Before we come to the Pallava-Ceylon relations, we may pause
awhile over the rather cryptic statement of the Mahavamsa, of the
sequel to the victory of Prince Duttagamini over King Elara, already
referred to, the statement that " when he had overpowered thirty-two
Damila Kings, he ruled over Lanka in single sovereignty."

Who are
these 32 Damila Kings ? There is no chronicle to clarify this bald
statement. Nevertheless we cannot brush this aside as pure fancy.
The term " Kings," need not be interpreted in the literal sense of
the word. It may well have been used in the general sense of chiefs
or nobles. The only reference we have, is to the existence of an
independent royal dynasty in South East Ceylon in the second century
B.C., supported by Paranavitana's researches on the inscriptions of
Bovatagala, at a distance of about 30 miles from Kataragama.
Commenting on this offshoot of the Kshatriyas, Paranavitana
observes,

" The origin of the Kshatriyas of Kataragama is obscure.
The only mention of them in chronicles is in Chapter XIX, verse 54,
of the Mahavamsa. There is no statement to show that the Kshatriyas
of Kataragama, were connected with the royal dynasty then ruling at
Anuradhapura. It appears possible that the Kshatriyas of Kataragama
were connected with a stream of immigrants to the Island quite
distinct from the main stream whose legends and traditions are the
theme of the chronicles of Anuradhapura."8

There is also a specific mention of " Kings " of Kataragama in
the Dhatuvamsa in the words,

" Gothabhaya, the ruler of Ruhuna
(South Ceylon) killed the ten brother kings of Kataragama, and for
expiation of the crime, he built 50 viharas on either side of the
Mahavaliganga."

That the epigraphs of Bovatagala studied by
Paranavitana, carry the engraved symbol of a fish, the symbol of the
Pandya dynasty, is of interest, and we have the authoritative
mention of the Mahavamsa of Elara, as a member of the Chola dynasty.
These several pointers in their totality make it plausible that the
thirty-two "kings," whom Duttagamini had to vanquish after he
overcame Elara, were the residue of the Tamil Kshatriya nobles who
lingered on in South Ceylon. All this leads us to the strong
presumption that there were pockets of Kshatriyas of South India in
isolated and secluded regions of South Ceylon.

Now that we have cleared the ground relating to the " kings "
that Duttagamini had to contend with, after he vanquished Elara, we
may briefly relate the Ceylon-Pallava relations.

Spells of peace and war alternated in the chronicle of IndoCeylon
relations of the early ages. Peaceful and cordial relations
subsisted from 2nd century B.C. to 8th century A.D., the era of
South Indian history covered by the Satavahanas and the Pallavas.
Manavamma the Sinhalese King and Narasinhavarman the Pallava King
(630 - 668) were friends and allies, and each with the help of the
other, triumphed over his rival to the throne of Ceylon and of the
Pallavas respectively, as dramatically narrated in the Mahavamsa
(Ch. XLVII: 15).

Of historical and cultural interest in this connection is the
Tiriyay rock inscription in the vicinity of Trincomalee — an
inscription which bears out the cordial relations between the
Sinhalese and the Pallava Kings. The observations of Paranavitana
spotlight the cultural value of this inscription :—

" The script of this record is one of its main features of
interest. It resembles Pallava-Grantha of about the seventh century,
and in this script has been written the few inscriptions of this
period found in Ceylon." Paranavitana assigns the Tiriyay rock
inscription to the closing decades of the seventh or the first half
of the eighth century (E.Z., Vol. IV, 1934 - 4L pp. 152 - 153).

The close connection of Ceylon with the Andhra Kingdom after the
break up of the Maurayan empire, profoundly influenced the Sinhalese
school of painting, best seen in the frescoes of the rock-pockets of
Sigiriya. Pallava connections of Ceylon are manifest in the temple
architecture of the age.

The temple of Issurumuniya, at Anuradhapura, incorporating both
structural and rock-cut techniques, and the rock-cut temple of
Dambulla with its long facade built on the slopes of a high cliff,
strongly recall the rock-cut Pallava temples of the Seven Pagodas of
Mahabalipuram, in the vicinity of the city of Madras. Of the Pallava
style too, are the sculpture of " Man and Horse " at Issurumuniya
and the magnificently sculptured realistic elephants on either side
of a cleft in rocky surface by the pond at Issurumuniya. The
elephant sculptures are remarkably like the elephants of
Mahabalipuram. The parallel to the Pallava art extends even to the
cleft in the rock, symbolic of the longitudinal cleavage of the
extensive rock surface at Mahabalipuram, the cleft simulating the
flow of the Ganga (the river Ganges). In typical Dravidian
architecture is the Nalanda Gedige in the district of Kandy in the
style of the monoliths of Mahabalipuram.

Of structural shrines of the Pallava period in Ceylon, we have
the Koneswar temple at Trincomalee and the temple of Tiruketeeswaram
in the North West. These are featured further on in some detail in
our general section on religion.

The Pallavas were great navigators and Ceylon obviously marked a
stage in their expansion over South East Asia. The Pallavas gave
place in South India to the Cholas and the Pandyas, and Ceylon
entered into a different phase of relations with these expansionist
powers. Six Pandyan chiefs occupied the throne of the Sinhalese
kings, in the course of the year 433 A.D. Dhatu Sena (460 - 478
A.D.) repelled the invaders, but agitations for the throne followed
his death. Muggalana the rightful heir escaped to India and returned
with reinforcements after a long period of eighteen years and fought
and won back the kingdom from the usurper Kassapa, who had ruled as
King from the castle he built over the precipitous rock of Sigiriya.
Dynastic disturbances flared up again in the succeeding year. Kings
Silameghavanna (617 A.D.), Agbo III (626 A.D.), Dhatopa Tissa I
(626-641 A.D), Dhatopa Tissa II (650-658) and Manavamma (676-711),
each in turn crossed over to South India for military reinforcements
of Tamil mercenaries.

We have reached a stage in the history of Ceylon, when she had to
contend with the rising powers of South India, the Pandyans and the
Cholas, events dealt with in some detail in a subsequent chapter.

With the ascendancy of the dynasties of Kotte, and two rival
kinsmen at Rayigam and Sitawaka, a fresh chapter opened in South
Indian relations. Covering the period from 1373 to 1509, the one
king of this era who ruled over entire Ceylon including the Tamil
kingdom of the North, was King Parakrama Bahu VI (1415-1467).
Politically the reign of this monarch is significant for Ceylon's
contacts with the new South Indian power, the Vijayanagar empire.
Culturally considered, Hindu influence was dominant in the counsels
of the Court, as in the fields of art, literature, music and the
dance.

As the Kotte kingdom faded out by slow stages, in its wake rose
the kingdom of Kandy, whose rise and progress synchronised with the
European period of Ceylon history, of the Portuguese, Dutch and the
British eras.

The reciprocal relations of South India in the closing stages of
the Kandyan kingdom, are briefly related in the succeeding chapter.

The quick survey we have here made of Ceylon history covers the
vast range of relations, political, social and cultural, of Ceylon
with India in general and specifically with South India, from the
close of the Vijayan to the opening of the Kandyan era, from 4th
century B.C. to early 16th century A.D., the period of the history
of Ceylon generally termed " the Indian period of Ceylon history."
Socially, almost all the several social groups in the population of
present day Ceylon entered the Island at some time or other, in the
long span of the Island's story. Of the social categories of South
India, the main groups are the Tamils, the Keralas and the Andhras,
in varying degrees, predominantly the Tamils, the racial and social
factor most adjacent to Ceylon.

Inspite of wars of aggression that marked the Chola and the
Pandyan periods of South Indian history, goodwill prevailed. Of
particular asset were the matrimonial relations between Sinhalese
and South India royalty. The example set by Vijaya, of matrimonial
kinship, grew with the years, into something of a convention. Thus
we see king Parakramabahu II (1238-1271), felicitating himself on
his part in promoting matrimonial links : " I have brought hither
the king's daughters from Jambudipa with gifts and thereby made the
nobles of a foreign land your kinsmen." Much the same link up is
recorded of King Raja Sinha II (1686-1687) : " He brought the king's
daughters hither from the town of Madura." (Culavamsa, Ch. 87, 25).

We have now briefly reviewed the course of
Ceylon history from the post-Vijayan to the era of the Kotte
dynasty, the closing stages of which synchronised with the rise of
the Kandyan monarchy, a dynasty of Kings who guided the destinies of
Ceylon from 1591 to 1815, entrenched in the mountain fastnesses of
Kandy. The Kandyan era in its later phase, witnessed the rise of a
line of Kings bearing the title of the Malabar dynasty, ' Malabar'
in the strictly Ceylonese sense of Tamil, a usage begun by the
Portuguese and continued by the Dutch, the British and the Sinhalese
historians. By the Malabar dynasty, is meant the Nayakkar dynasty of
Madurai, tracing descent from the Pandyan and later the Vijayanagar
Kingdom. The Nayakkars of Madurai were governors of provinces under
the Vijayanagar emperors. With the fall of the Vijayanagar empire,
the Nayakkars of Madurai, like those of Tanjore, assumed
independence.

A Matrimonial Heritage

Malabar dynasty of Kandyan Kings may rightly be viewed, as a
sequel to the matrimonial alliances of Sinhalese Kings with the
South Indian royal families.

Stoudt (p. 42) sums up the story of inter-racial marriages
between Sinhalese royalty and princesses of royal dynasties of South
India, in these words :

" It is known that Sinhalese Kings, starting
from Vijaya in 543 B.C., often married Tamil Hindu princesses from
the South Indian Kingdoms of Pandya, in the Madura and Tinnevelly
districts, Chola, along the Coromandel coast and Chera, on the South
West coast. As late as the 17th century, Knox reports that the "
right and lawful Queen " of the Kandyan Sinhalese King Rajasimha II
" was a Malabar brought from the Coast." 9

King Narendra Sinha's wife was a princess of Madura, daughter of
Pitti Nayakkar. The King subsequently married her two sisters as
well. His three wives bore him no heir. So at his death, Narendra
Sinha nominated the brother of the Queens to succeed him, and he
duly succeeded Narendra Sinha as King, under the throne name of Sri
Wijaya Raja Sinha. Thus began the Malabar dynasty of Kandyan Kings.
There were four kings of this dynasty, Sri Wijaya Raja Sinha
(1739-1747), Kirti Sri Raja Sinha (1747-1780), Sri Rajadhi Raja
Sinha (1780-1798) and Sri Wickrama Raja Sinha (1795-1815). With the
accession of the latter, a fresh chapter opened in the history of
Ceylon, progressively leading under a combination of circumstances,
to the termination of the Kandyan royal dynasty and with it, the end
of the Sinhalese monarchy, replaced by the British.

The only Tamil royal dynasty, apart from the
Aryachakravarties of
Jaffna, the Nayakkar dynasty of Kandy from 1739 to 1815, has had its
own impact on the socio-cultural landscape of the Kandyan region.
The political arena opened the door to Tamil social and cultural
influences. The social and cultural impact has not been lost on the
historians and administrators of the Colonial times. Thus Ivers :

"
The original Keppitipolas were full blooded Tamils who came to the
Island with some Malabar King presumably subsequent to 1739, when
the Malabar dynasty was instituted and settled in Navagammuwa, near
Rambukkana " ( R. W. Ivers, Official Diary, Kegalla, 26-9-1881). "
In time they were considered aristocratic Sinhalese, having acquired
the indigenous language, religion and customs."

Evidently the retinue that accompanied the several kings and
queens and other members of the royal family, were of all classes,
nobles as well as commoners duly absorbed in the vast statecraft of
the Kingdom and in the heirarchy of the Court and palace personnel.

Jaffna
contacts with South Indian royal dynasties, the Pallava, the Chola
and Pandya, and later the Vijayanagar were either incidental to the
political relations of these dynasties with the Sinhalese monarchy
or direct with Jaffna. By virtue of her geographical situation at
the apex of Ceylon, Jaffna served in these intercourses, as the
political springboard between South India and Ceylon, and Jaffna sea
ports were the gateway to and from Ceylon. In the early days,
relations between South India and Ceylon were purely social and
matrimonial, relations which had far-reaching consequences in the
later ages. Rivals for supremacy in South India turned for support
to the Sinhalese kings who were thus drawn into the almost
continuous struggles that were a feature of the martial life of the
Middle Ages. These activities had their own repercussions on the
political history of Ceylon.

To confine our attention to Jaffna. Specific mention of Jaffna
occurs in the two Manimangalam 10 inscriptions,
the first by the Chola king Rajadhiraja I (1018 - 1054), in 1046
A.D. and the second by Rajendra Chola in 1059 A.D. The earlier
inscription speaks of " three allied kings of the south, who arrayed
themselves against the king." The third of these kings bears the
name Manabharana, whom the king vanquished and killed in the
battlefield. In the second inscription, that of 1059, Manabharana is
specifically featured as a king of Ceylon. As there was no Sinhalese
king of this age of the name Manabharana, it is felt that the
reference may be to a king of Jaffna. This is scarcely correct, as
there was no king of Jaffna either by this name.

Apart from the inscriptions and their triumphant tone, we have no
account of any political conflicts visualised in these records. The
name Kanna Kuchiyar occurring in the inscription, meaning the people
of the land from which the troops came, leads historians like
Rasanayagam 11 to presume that it refers to the
land of Jaffna, the land of the Kanna Kuchiyar, or men who wore
their tuft of hair slung on a side of the head (Kanna or Karna).

The reference in the inscription to Manabharana, as king of
Jaffna, seems susceptible of another interpretation — that he may
well have been a prince of Jaffna royal line. This view finds
support from a series of matrimonial alliances. The Sinhalese king
Vijayabahu I (1070 - 1114), gave his sister Mitta in marriage to a
Pandyan prince. His three sons by this alliance are Manabharana,
Kitti Siri Megha and Sri Vallabha, names which seem to ring a close
parallel to the names in the inscriptions. Vijayabahu's queen,
Tilokasundari was herself a princess of the Kalinga royal line (of
Singai Nagar of Jaffna). Manabharana, the son of the Pandyan king by
Mitta, the sister of Vijayabahu married his cousin, Ratnavali, the
daughter of Vijayabahu. In the light of these affiliations, we may
perhaps give some credence to the language of the inscription and
presume that a prince of Jaffna and not a king may have been meant
by the name Manabharana. This nevertheless is unsupported by any
account of any conflict between the Chola kings and Jaffna.

In the literature of the age, we have in the Tamil poem, Chola
Mandala Satakam by Kambar, the renowned court poet of Rajaraja II
(1164 - 1173), reference to a generous gift of a thousand shipload
of paddy by Sadayappa Mudali, a patron of the poet, to relieve a
great famine of the time. The king is referred to as Pararaja
Singham, alluded to as King of Kandy. How this anachronism crept in,
we are unable to say. Perhaps it is an interpolation of later days.
The fame that Kandy attained to in the later ages, may have been
responsible for this patent error. Pararaja Singham may well have
signified a king of Jaffna, who often took the throne name of
Pararaja Sekharan, which may have been transformed to Pararaja
Singham by the poet.

Of Chola relations, we have also the mention of an invasion of
Jaffna by Rajendra Chola III, who is pictured as " a very Rama in
Northern Lanka, renowned as the abode of Virarakshasas." (M.E.R. of
1912, Sect. 32: page 69 and Inscription No. 64 of 1892 and No. 42 of
1911).

Of Pandyan connections we have a series, almost all linked with
dynastic rivalries. Sundara Pandya (1216 - 1244) A.D. sets the pace
in Jaffna-Pandya relations, by soliciting the help of Jaffna king
against his rival Vira Pandya. The Jaffna king readily responds and
with his aid, Sundara Pandya regains the throne. This is borne out
by the inscription of the 20th Year of Maravarman Sundara Pandya.
Distinctive as the title Pararaja Sekharan has been, of the Jaffna
kings, it is obviously justifiable to conclude as Rasanayagam does,
that the king referred to in the inscription is an Arya Chakravarti
of Jaffna.

It is likely that it is this event that is referred to in the
Yalpana Vaipava Malai, of a Pandyan king seeking the aid of Singa
Aryan, with whose reinforcements, the Pandyan regained the throne.
An element of confusion is cast by the circumstance that the Pandyan
king is featured as Chandra Sekharan and not as Sundara Pandya.
Vaipava Malai, being a collection of oral chronicles, lapses of the
sort do occur. This nevertheless does not seem to affect the basic
core of the aid afforded by the Jaffna king to the Pandyan. Sundara
Pandyan's rule being from 1214 to 1244 A.D., the Arya Chakravarti
who went to his aid, would presumably have been Vijaya Kulankai
Chakravarti,otherwise known as Singai Aryan (1215 - 1240). We have
also the allusion in the Tamil composition, Segaraja Sekara Malai,
of help to Sundara Pandyan by a Jaffna king against a Hoysala.12

That it was not all a one-way traffic, is shown by a record which
speaks of Jatavarman Vira Pandya coming to the aid of Jaffna in 1253
A.D. against the invasion of the Javakas from far off Java, led by
Chandrabanu.13 That this event was something more
than a passing-show is evident from reminiscences in Jaffna that
recall Javaka contacts of North Ceylon. One of these is that part of
Jaffna known today as Chavakacheri. A cultural trait active today is
the Musical Kite of Jaffna, the home of which is the Indonesian
Islands. In Ceylon the Musical Kite does not prevail anywhere
outside Jaffna.

To resume our narrative of Jaffna relations with South India. The
finale of these relations is something of which we have a number of
differing versions. The personalities concerned are the triangular
powers, the Sinhalese monarchy, Arya Chakravarti and the Pandyan. We
may begin with the Culavamsa 14 account :

" Once when here in Lanka, a famine arose, there landed, sent
with an army by the five brothers, the kings who held sway in
the Pandu realm, a Damila general known by the name of Arya
Chakravarti, who though he was no Arya, was yet a great
dignitary of great power. He laid waste the kingdom in every
direction and entered the proud stronghold, the town of
Suhhagiri (Yapahu). The sacred Tooth Relic and all the costly
treasures there, he seized and returned with them to the Pandu
kingdom. There he made over the Tooth Relic to king Kula Sekhara,
who was as the sun for the lotus blossom of the stem of the
great kings of the Pandus."

" As the ruler, Parakramabahu III (1303 - 1310) saw no other
means but friendly negotiations, he set forth in the company of
several able warriors, betook himself to the Pandu kingdom and
sought out the ruler of the Pandus. By daily conversations he
inclined himfavourably, received from the hands of the king the
Tooth Relic, returned to the Island of Lanka and placed the
Relic in the superb Pulathinagara in the former Relic Temple." (Cul.
V. 48-47).

The allusion to five brothers15 who ruled over
the Pandyan kingdom jointly finds mention by Marco Polo 16
who, in an account of his travels in South India towards the close
of the 13th century, speaks of " five royal brothers and five
crowned kings of the province of Malabar." We are also informed of "
contemporary Chinese sources " which tell us of " the five brothers
who were Sultans." No corroboration of this is found from other
sources, nor does any chronicle tell us of any cause of action
between either the " five brothers," or Kulasekhara Pandyan, against
Ceylon, resulting in " the sacred Relic and all costly treasures "
of Yapahu being carried away as spoils of the fight.

The Jaffna version gives us an altogether different view.
According to these accounts, in the Yalpana Vaipava Malai, a
conflict arose between Bhuvenakabahu I (1278 - 12/4), the Sinhalese
king and the Arya Chakravarti of Jaffna over the rights of Pearl
fishery in the Gulf of Mannar. The battle staged (1278 A.D.). was
severe and Arya Chakravarti triumphed over his adversary. As a
consequence, it is claimed, that " one flag, the flag of Yalpanam,
waved over the whole of Lanka." The sacred Relic and other treasures
fell into the hands of the victor. According to the Vaipava Malai, "
this state of affairs continued for twelve years, and the Jaffna
king restored the kingdom to Parakramabahu through the mediation of
Kulasekhara, King of Pandya (1268 - 1309), who personally guaranteed
the annual payment of tribute by the Sinhalese king."

Paul Pieris,17 takes a balanced view with the
statement that " Arya Chakravarti was attempting to spread his
domain over Sinhalese territories," while he agrees that " following
the death of Pandita Parakramabahu (1235- 1270), repeated invasions
from India took place and the Tooth Relic was captured by the
Pandyans, who restored it on the personal intercession of the king
who proceeded to India for the purpose."

A dispassionate judgment would entitle us to favour the Yalpana
Vaipava Malai account as the more probable of the two versions, an
invasion by the Arya Chakravarti of Jaffna without engrafting an
extraneous element in the person of a minister of the Pandyan King,
Kulasekhara, a rather laboured proposition without anything to
support it in the nature of any other evidence from Indian or Ceylon
sources. The description of the political scene of the time as the
Rajavaliya 18 presents it, of the position of the
Arya Chakravarti vis-a-vis the other powers, is also in favour of a
probability of a direct invasion by the Arya Chakravarti as more
reasonable than the story as the Mahavamsa gives it :-

" The Minister Alakeswara lived in the city of Raiyagama and the
nephew of Parakramabahu remained in the city of Gampola while the
King Arya Chakravarti dwelt in the seaport of Yalpanapatuna. Arya
Chakravarti whose army and wealth were superior to those of the
other kings, caused tribute to be brought to him from the hill and
low districts and from the nine ports."

The Culavamsa's eulogy, on the other hand, of the Pandyan King
Kulasekhara in the words 19, " the king who was as
the sun of the lotus blossom of the stem of the great kings of the
Pandus, " is easy to understand. Whatever may be the different
versions of the conflict, of one thing all are agreed, that it was
solely through the intercession of the Pandyan King that the Tooth
Relic and the treasures were restored to the Sinhalese.

To Sinhalese
kings, the Tooth Relic stands for the very stability of the kingdom,
and to all it has a foremost place in the religious life of the
land. The high praise lavished on the Pandyan king by the Culavamsa,
may more reasonably be viewed as an acknowledgment of the
inestimable services of Kulasekhara in getting the Tooth Relic and
costly treasures restored. Nor should we forget that despite
differences of the latter days, the connection between the Sinhalese
kings and the Pandyan dynasty has been one of the closest from the
day that Vijaya and his followers espoused Pandyan wives, a
relationship that developed in later ages in further matrimonial
alliances.

The grandfather of Parakramabahu I was a Pandyan prince (Cul.
59, 41 - 44). It is as a reflection of all these traditions and
mementoes of alliances, added to the signal services of Kulasekhara
Pandyan in interceding between the Arya Chakravarti and King
Bhuvenakabahu that the praise to the Pandyan king by Culavamsa may
best be interpreted.

With the rise and expansion of the Vijayanagar empire, the
Pandyan power progressively waned. That the Pandyan nevertheless
continued to be a significant factor for some time in South Indian
politics, we may presume from an expedition that Arikesari Parakrama
Pandya (1422 - 1461) led against the Chera and Sinhala. 20
Among the battles he claims to have won, are mentioned those staged
at Singai and Anura, very possibly signifying Singai Nagar, capital
of Jaffna, and Anuradhapura, the Sinhalese capital. This invasion
may be the invasion of 1451, which Philalethes 21
mentions in his history of Ceylon.

Vijayanagar coming into power, in the wake of the Chola and the
Pandyan kingdoms, a new epoch opens in the history of South India.
The influence that Vijayanagar exercised over the adjacent
countries, is a measure of its strength and power. That the
neighbouring kingdoms courted its favour, is a reasonable conclusion
from the reference by Ferishta that " the Rajas of Malabar, Ceylon
and other countries kept ambassadors at the court of the king of
Vijayanagar and sent annually rich presents." This need not
necessarily mean that Vijayanagar brought these countries under its
dominance by might of arms.

The period of Vijayanagar empire, from the middle of the 14th to
the end of the 17th century, covers so far as Ceylon is concerned,
the reign of the kings of Rayigam and Kotte, whose dynasties
together lasted from the late fourteenth to early sixteenth century.
The two outstanding monarchs of this age are, Vira Alakeswara, at
Rayigam and Parakramabahu VI (1415 - 1467), at Kotte, the king who
brought all Ceylon under one umbrella. That Vijayanagar empire cast
it spell over Ceylon of the days, is obvious. Nevertheless it was an
influence different in character from the policies of the aggressive
Chola and the Pandya.

Steering clear of speculations of earlier contacts, Vijayanagar
relations with Ceylon commenced with the campaigns of Virupaksha
against the neighbouring kingdoms, including Ceylon. Our main
evidence of this, are the Ariyur Plates22 of
Virupaksha I, 1390 A.D., according to which the Vijayanagar king,
planted a pillar of victory in Sinhala. This event is presumed to
have taken place between A.D. 1386 and 1390, judging from the
circumstance that the Soraikkavur Plates of 13862, are silent on his
Ceylon campaigns. The conquest of Simhala finds mention too in the
poetical composition, Narayanaviiasam by Virupaksha.

Harihara II, in his Nallur inscription of 1399, speaks of himself
as master of Purva, Pachima and Dakshina Samudradhisvara. This lends
support to his encounters over Ceylon.

An invasion by Maha Desa Raja against the Sinhalese king at
Gampola, chronicled in the Rajavaiiya,23 is also
presumed to be a Vijayanagar invasion of Ceylon. Nevertheless this
cannot be considered very authoritative, unsupported by evidence
from other sources.

The observations of Fernao Nuniz,24 the
Portuguese chronicler that " Ajaras took Goa and Chaul and Dabull
and Caillao and all the country of the Charamandal," sounds
authentic. Ajaras may very likely refer to Virupaksha Raja, and
Caillao is obviously Ceylon.

From these several references we may conclude that the
Vijayanagar kings following Virupaksha, left Ceylon alone until
Devaraja II (1422 - 1446), came into power and turned his gaze on
his neighbours including Ceylon. This obviously was a strategic move
to assert his powers over his neighbours, as may be inferred from
the title Dakshina Samudradhipati 25 he assumed
following the military manoeuvres by his General Lakanna Dandanayaka.
The objectives specifically included Yalpanam (Jaffna) and Ilam the
rest of Ceylon. This we learn from a Vijayanagar inscription 26 of Saka (1362 - 1440 A.D.). The Jaffna king of the
time may be Gunaveera Singai Aryan (1410 - 1440 A.D.), and the
Sinhalese king, Parakramabahu VI (1415 - 1467). No details have come
to light nevertheless, of any encounter between the forces of the
Vijayanagar king and either Jaffna or Kotte. It might well have been
a triumphant march, a show of might, without coming to a head in the
form of a resort to arms.

Almost seven years after his first expedition, Lakanna appears to
have staged a second expedition, as we gather from an account left
by Abdur Razzak, the Persian ambassador to the court of Deva Raya
II. This was probably impelled by the need to re-establish the
waning allegiance of these neighbours, after a lapse of seven years.
The General seems to have retracted his steps, without achieving
anything, owing to untoward developments at the court of Vijayanagar,
in the course of which a desperate effort was made on the life of
the king himself. The reference to Lakanna having been " on the
frontiers of Ceylon,"27 does not justify the
conclusion that this expedition was directed specifically against
Jaffna alone. More reasonably it may be presumed that as he reached
North Ceylon, he had to turn back owing to troubles at home alluded
to above.

In regard to Vijayanagar-Ceylon relations in general, Salatore
places the first expedition to Ceylon in 1415 A.D. and refutes the
view that there was a Vijayanagar conquest of Ceylon after
Virupaksha (Indian Antiquary, Volume LXI, 1932, pp. 228 et seq.).

As an example of the striking capacity of Parakramabahu VI, of
Kotte, we have the reference to an expedition set out by the latter,
against a chieftain of Tanjore, Malavaraja in retaliation to the
arbitrary seizure of a Ceylon cargo of cinnamon by the chieftain and
his men. According to Rajavaiiya, the chieftain was slain and much
booty carried away, and an annual tribute was paid by the four
villages near the port of Adirampet.28

Dr. M.
D. Raghavan was educated at the Madras and Oxford Universities.
He participated in field work with the Anthropological
Expedition to India by the Saxon State Institute, Germany led by
Prof. Egon von Eickstedt in 1928. The first Head of the
Department of Anthropology, University of Madras, Dr. Raghavan
was also President of the Ethnology and Folklore Section of the
All-India Oriental Conference, 11th Session, held at Hyderabad.

On his retirement from the Indian Service. the Government of
Ceylon appointed him in 1946 to the post of Ethnologist in the
Department of National Museums, where his work covered a wide
range of assignments : Ethnologist and Assistant Director,
National Museums ; Member, Advisory Board for the Welfare of
Backward Communities and Tribes ; Member, Arts Council of
Ceylon. Panel of Folk Songs and Dances ; and Hilda Obeysekara
Senior Research Fellow at the University of Ceylon for two
years.

Dr. Raghavan is an accepted authority on the ethnography of
Ceylon. He is known for the scholarship and meticulousness of
his extensive studies in this field. Among his earlier studies
is his pioneering work on the ballads of Kerala published in
issues of the Indian Antiquary, Folk-lore, Nature and Oriental
Literary Digest.

Dr. Raghavan is the author of a series of monographs in the
Ethnological Survey of Ceylon that appeared in the Spolia
Zeylanica journal of the National Museums of Ceylon. He has
published several articles in Ceylon Today, the journal of the
Department of Information, Government of Ceylon, in New Lanka
and other Ceylon journals.